Common Genet
The common genet (Genetta genetta), often searched for simply as the genet and also called the small spotted genet, is a slender, catlike carnivore with a pale gray coat covered in rows of black spots, a black crest of hair along the spine and a long tail with eight to thirteen dark rings and a white tip. Native to much of Africa and the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, it was brought from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago, and it is now the only member of the family Viverridae living wild in Europe, from Spain and Portugal into France. It is active mainly at night and around dusk and dawn, and it spends the day resting in hollow trees, rock crevices or thick bushes, often returning to the same shelters. An excellent climber, it hunts mostly on the ground, catching mice and other small mammals, birds, lizards, insects and some fruit such as figs and olives. It marks its territory with scent and leaves its droppings in fixed latrines. Despite its looks it is not a cat: genets are viverrids, close relatives of civets, and their nearest kin beyond that are mongooses and hyenas.
What is a genet? Is it a cat?
A genet is a small carnivore of the genus Genetta, and the common genet (Genetta genetta) is the best known of the more than a dozen genet species. It is also called the small spotted genet, and in Spanish and Portuguese it is the gineta or geneta. At first sight it looks like a long, spotted cat with a raccoon's ringed tail, which is why so many people ask whether a genet is a cat. It is not. Genets belong to the family Viverridae, together with civets and the binturong, and their next closest relatives are the mongooses and the hyenas. Cats are a more distant branch of the same group of carnivores. Some features are shared with cats, such as semi retractile claws, a neck bite to kill prey and a hiss when scared, but these come from a similar way of life, not from close kinship. In fact, viverrids like the genet are among the living carnivores that look most like the common ancestor of the whole order. Scientists recognize several regional forms: genets of Iberia and France, of North Africa, of the savannas south of the Sahara and of Arabia. Genets in southern Africa are often treated as a separate species, the South African small spotted genet, although the IUCN still includes them in the common genet.
What does a common genet look like? Size, spots and tail
The common genet has a long, low body, short legs, a small head with a pointed muzzle, big oval ears and large eyes made for seeing at night. Its whiskers can reach 7 centimeters. The head and body measure 43 to 55 centimeters (17 to 22 inches), and the tail adds another 33 to 52 centimeters, so the tail is almost as long as the rest of the animal. Adults weigh only about 1.4 to 2.3 kilograms (3 to 5 pounds), and males are around 10 percent larger than females. The fur is dense and soft, pale gray with about five rows of black spots along the back and sides. A black stripe runs down the middle of the back, and on top of it grows a crest of longer hair that the genet raises when it feels threatened, making itself look bigger. The face has a dark stripe on the forehead, dark patches under the eyes and white marks around them, with a white chin and throat. The tail carries eight to thirteen black rings and ends in a white tip, and the hind feet are black. Its claws are semi retractile and its feet are catlike, which helps it climb trees with ease. A completely black genet was recorded in southern Portugal in 2019.
Common genet or spotted genet? How to tell genets apart
People often search for the spotted genet, but all genets have spots, so the name can point to more than one animal. The common genet is the small spotted genet. In much of Africa it shares its range with the large spotted genets, also called rusty spotted genets, and telling them apart is a classic puzzle on night drives. The easiest clue is the tail. The common genet's tail ends in a white tip, while the large spotted genets have a black tip. The common genet also has a black crest of long hair running along its spine, which it can raise, and the large spotted genets lack it or have only a short one. Its spots are smaller and black, set in rows on a pale gray coat, while the large spotted genets carry bigger, often rusty brown blotches on a yellowish background. The common genet also has black hind feet and a slightly longer, coarser coat. Habitat helps too: the common genet prefers drier savanna, scrub and rocky country, while the large spotted genets are more common in moister woodland and forest edges. In Europe there is no confusion, because the common genet is the only genet that lives there. Around 2014, viral photos of a genet riding on a buffalo and a rhino in South Africa were of a large spotted genet.
Where do common genets live?
The common genet has one of the widest ranges of any genet. In Africa it lives north of the Sahara along the Mediterranean side of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where it is common, and more rarely in Libya and Egypt. South of the Sahara it occupies a broad band of Sahel and savanna from Senegal and Mauritania across to Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. A separate southern population runs from southern Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho. Outside Africa it lives in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman. In Europe it lives across mainland Spain and Portugal and in much of France. Its French range was long thought to end at the Loire and the Rhône, but genets are now found east of the Rhône too. The common genet avoids true desert, rainforest, marshes and big open fields. It needs cover: bushes, thickets, oak and pine woods, olive groves, riverside trees and rocky slopes full of crevices. Unlike some relatives it does not depend on water and handles dry country well. The IUCN records it from sea level up to 3,000 meters (about 9,800 feet), and in central Spain it is most frequent between 1,000 and 1,200 meters.
How did genets get to Europe?
The common genet is the only viverrid living wild in Europe, but it is not originally European. Genetic studies show that the genets of Spain, Portugal and France have low genetic diversity and are closely related to genets from North Africa, the signs of a population that arrived recently from the Maghreb rather than one that has always been there. The common view is that people brought them across as semi domestic animals about 1,000 to 1,500 years ago, perhaps to keep homes and stores free of mice. A study that compared nearly two hundred genets from both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar found that they probably entered Iberia through at least two separate points, Catalonia and Andalusia, possibly along old trade routes or with the Muslim conquest of the peninsula. The only ancient genet bone found in Iberia dates from the time of Muslim rule and carries the most common European genetic type. The same study showed that the Egyptian mongoose, which also lives in southern Iberia, did not arrive at the same time. After so many centuries the genet is treated as part of the local wildlife: in the European Union it is listed in the Habitats Directive and the Bern Convention, and in Spain and Portugal it is a familiar, if rarely seen, animal of the countryside.
What do genets eat?
The common genet is a carnivore that eats a bit of everything it can catch. Small mammals are the core of its diet, and in Spain and Portugal the wood mouse is its favorite prey, followed by other mice, voles and young rabbits where they are easy to take. It also eats birds and their eggs, lizards, frogs and toads, and plenty of invertebrates: beetles, grasshoppers, centipedes, millipedes and even scorpions in dry areas of Africa. Fruit is a regular extra, especially figs, olives and berries in late summer and autumn, when they can make up a good part of what it eats. The menu changes with the place and the season, and studies of its droppings show that it simply takes whatever is most plentiful nearby. The genet finds its prey mostly by smell and hearing as it moves slowly through the undergrowth at night. Then it stalks low to the ground and makes a short, fast pounce. It kills with a bite to the neck, and rodents are usually bitten on the head and eaten head first. It can also catch roosting birds by climbing into trees and bushes. Near farms it sometimes raids chicken coops, which is one of the few reasons it comes into conflict with people.
Genet behavior: night life, latrines and calls
The common genet lives alone and is active mainly at night, with peaks just after sunset and just before sunrise. Young genets are sometimes seen moving around in daylight, but adults spend the day asleep in hollow trees, rock crevices, thick bushes covered in climbing plants or old burrows, and they often come back to the same resting places. Each genet uses a home range that it knows very well. In northeastern Spain males use about 113 hectares (280 acres) over a year and females about 72 hectares, while in southern Spain ranges average almost 8 square kilometers. The ranges of a male and a female can overlap, but genets of the same sex keep apart. Genets communicate a lot through smell. Females rub glands on their flanks, hind legs and the area under the tail on branches and rocks, and males mark mostly by spraying urine, above all in the breeding season. They also leave their droppings in latrines, fixed spots on rocks, tree forks or even roofs that are used again and again, often at the edge of a territory. Researchers have described five calls, including a hiccup, a purr, a mew, a growl and a click. When it is threatened, a genet raises its black crest, arches its back and shows its teeth.
Genet babies: breeding, kits and lifespan
In Spain common genets can breed from January to September, with one peak of births in late winter and spring and a second, smaller one in summer. Mating is short, about two to three minutes, but a pair may mate up to five times in one night. After a pregnancy of 10 to 11 weeks, the female gives birth to up to four young, usually two or three, in a hidden den such as a hollow tree, a rock crevice or a thick bush. The kits weigh only 60 to 85 grams at birth and are born with their eyes closed. The mother raises them alone. They begin to eat meat at about seven weeks, are fully weaned at four months and can hunt well on their own by five months. Young genets start scent marking at about 19 months and are thought to be ready to breed at around two years old. How long a genet lives in the wild is not well known, since few have been followed for many years, but in zoos they commonly pass 13 years and the oldest known one reached about 22.
Is the common genet endangered?
No. The IUCN lists the common genet as Least Concern, the lowest level of risk, in its latest global assessment from 2015, and describes its population as stable. There is no estimate of how many genets exist, but the species covers a huge area across Africa, Arabia and southwestern Europe, it is common in many places and it copes well with farmland, olive groves and the edges of towns, as long as there is cover to hide in. The IUCN notes that the assessment needs updating, and the threats it lists are local rather than global. Roads are one of the main causes of death in Spain and Portugal, where many genets are hit by cars at night. In Portugal some are killed in traps set for other predators, and farmers sometimes kill genets that raid chicken coops. In North Africa and parts of southern Africa they are hunted for their fur, and they are also used for food and traditional medicine. In Europe the common genet is listed in Appendix III of the Bern Convention and in Annex V of the EU Habitats Directive, which regulate how it can be hunted or trapped.
Where it is found
The Common Genet can be found in places such as:
